Microsoft Has Just Blackmailed Linux Twice in One Single Week and the Media Didn’t Notice or Just Ignored It Because of Microsoft’s Charm Offensives

[suicidalfranco]

[deviant88]

2 hours ago, LittleCarrot said:

It looks like Microsoft is feeling threatened by Linux. This could be a good or bad thing. 

 

Threatened by what? a platform with no dekstop drivers? in the server thats another topic but on desktop linux is a lost cause, we'd all love a healthy linux desktop competing with microsoft on market share, but its too late for that, mainstream people have/are moving to mobile or stay on windows since thats all they know and they WONT learn something new even if it would be better. 

If linux had anyone like google or valve for the desktop part, linux would have long taken over the desktop from microsoft retards just like android now its all lost we'll be stuck with fucking windows for the rest of the desktop's life.

[Misanthrope]

31 minutes ago, deviant88 said:

 

Threatened by what? a platform with no dekstop drivers? in the server thats another topic

Indeed, that's the topic the Linux community is talking about here. 

[HelplmChoking]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Either way, they can get fucked with any OS after Windows 7 (pissed at this, the problems with MSX, and the fact that every version of Windows after 7 has a few new things, and a lot stripped out instead of stuff just being added or being made optional).

Oh God not this again.. What problems with Windows 10?? I've been running it on my custom rig since the beta, my SP4, my rendering server and as a dual boot on my girlfriend's Mac. Not once has there been any issue, not with running, not with updating, not with installing. It works fine for me and everyone I know.

[Misanthrope]

10 minutes ago, Rangaman42 said:

Oh God not this again.. What problems with Windows 10?? I've been running it on my custom rig since the beta, my SP4, my rendering server and as a dual boot on my girlfriend's Mac. Not once has there been any issue, not with running, not with updating, not with installing. It works fine for me and everyone I know.

1) "Works fine for me and everyone I [personally] know" Please look up the validity of anecdotal evidence. 

 

2) Privacy might not be a concern for you, because of personal reasons or lack of understanding about the principle of collecting metadata and what can be achieved with it, but it's not something to be immediately dismissed for many.

[suicidalfranco]

16 minutes ago, Rangaman42 said:

Oh God not this again.. What problems with Windows 10?? I've been running it on my custom rig since the beta, my SP4, my rendering server and as a dual boot on my girlfriend's Mac. Not once has there been any issue, not with running, not with updating, not with installing. It works fine for me and everyone I know.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

anecdotal 

[Blake]

Why is no-one commenting on the article looking like it was written with "muh-freedom" die hard Linux guy? Seriously I have seen turds write more objective and less biased articles, and they are literally shit.

 

 

Let me summarise the issue:

MS patented some things.

GNU/Linux may or may not have used these patents.

MS Thinks they did, is taking gnu/linux to court to get a ruling.

Sees lots of Networking gear run Linux/Unix/BSD (ubnt with debian, cisco ios on unix etc), and builds it's own version, no news as to if it is going to be gpl compliant, as it's has only been announced, not released.

While this is happening MS, sees a growing community of Linux/Unix/BSD sysadmins, decides to start extending the olive branch towards these groups, claims of "muh-freedom, and charm offensive ensure"

 

 

 

 

[Misanthrope]

5 minutes ago, Blake said:

Why is no-one commenting on the article looking like it was written with "muh-freedom" die hard Linux guy? Seriously I have seen turds write more objective and less biased articles, and they are literally shit.

 

 

Let me summarise the issue:

MS patented some things.

GNU/Linux may or may not have used these patents.

MS Thinks they did, is taking gnu/linux to court to get a ruling.

Sees lots of Networking gear run Linux/Unix/BSD (ubnt with debian, cisco ios on unix etc), and builds it's own version, no news as to if it is going to be gpl compliant, as it's has only been announced, not released.

While this is happening MS, sees a growing community of Linux/Unix/BSD sysadmins, decides to start extending the olive branch towards these groups, claims of "muh-freedom, and charm offensive ensure"

 

 

 

 

For someone criticizing the article I must say you didn't do a good job of reading it yourself: there's no court as these are out of court settlements, hence why they're equating it to racketeering.

[AlTech]

3 hours ago, spwath said:

monopole?

 

Like with magnetic fields?

How are they a monopoly. Monopoly of what field?

Bruh. Just one metal pole.

[Albatross]

4 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

That's the one area where they're at their strongest: the legal side. Not that I'm saying they won't lose, but they'll put of a hell of a fucking fight, think Apple vs Samsung ordeal here if Microsoft goes after GNU/Linux.

I agree.

 

If anything they won't go down easy.

[Blake]

18 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

For someone criticizing the article I must say you didn't do a good job of reading it yourself: there's no court as these are out of court settlements, hence why they're equating it to racketeering.

by that logic the 90% of legal disagreements that don't end up in court, must also be racketeering? The phrase take to court, is to settle a legal matter, it's just that court is the highest level of escalation and "taking to arbitration" or "sending a strongly worded letter from the laywers" just don't sound as good.

 

That also being said, If you can't see the shit writing in this article you need to go back to school.

 

Take:

Quote

So only 2 days apart Microsoft signed two Linux-related patent ‘deals’ (extortion), but the media focused only on Microsoft PR. 

See that 'deals' (extortion) part? see how it's not actually substantiated at all? The excuse? NDA. Well unfortunately that meant the author is going purely based of hearsay, or is one of the parties involved, and would then be breaching the NDA. Looks like the former to me.

 

Seriously, this is the biggest issue with GNU/Linux, the fucking fanbois "muh-freedom this, muh-freedom that, M$ Shill, M$ is the devil, etc etc" grow the fuck up. Great products though.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

I am sorry, but what the bloody hell is that source?

 

I am trying to read the information in the article, but it gets completely drowned out by the visibly spiteful delivery of the message. Whatever objectivity it had is thrown right out the window.

[Albatross]

3 hours ago, Blake said:

Seriously, this is the biggest issue with GNU/Linux, the fucking fanbois "muh-freedom this, muh-freedom that, M$ Shill, M$ is the devil, etc etc" grow the fuck up. Great products though.

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Prysin said:

Steam isnt everything, a lot of older games work on Linux, but not on OSX

I've actually found that with my brothers Asus A3H (upgraded to Pentium M770 as the Celeron didn't have speed step, 2GB RAM, Intel 915GML) older games such as those from Windows 9* and older run far better under WINE than they do natively under XP or indeed Windows 98SE and ME themselves (gotta love having a single OEM disc that installs 95, 98se or Windows ME).

[GoodBytes]

Lesson in life, don't be dependent on someone else. Make your own, then you won't have problems. I learned that with personal projects, where the tool I was dependent on for my software, increased in prices, and never updated. Because my software was so entrenched with the tool, I had no choice to recode a large part of it.

[GoodBytes]

Also, @LittleCarrot, fix your post because it doesn't meat posting guideline.

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Blake said:

by that logic the 90% of legal disagreements that don't end up in court, must also be racketeering? The phrase take to court, is to settle a legal matter, it's just that court is the highest level of escalation and "taking to arbitration" or "sending a strongly worded letter from the laywers" just don't sound as good.

So just because it's common place for big companies to intimidate smaller ones it makes it ok? Yes it's common for big and/or litigious companies to abuse the flawed copyright laws to intimidate others into settlements. We even created a term for it: patent trolling.

 

It's still gaining money (but in the case of Microsoft, precedent for an inevitable legal battle) by means of intimidation: even if Microsoft cannot prove in court they're the lawful owners of patents AND that companies using GNU/Linux are in fact, infringing said patents, most companies would go bankrupt attempting to litigate said case because the legal system awards monetary investment vs having the law on your side by giving too many concessions to copyright holders.

[BuckGup]

3 hours ago, Prysin said:

Steam isnt everything, a lot of older games work on Linux, but not on OSX

Ehhh I guess. But a lot of older games also work on OSX. That was my first PC gaming experiance on a powermac g3. Tony hawk pro skater 3, nano saur, and zoo tycoon 

[Nowak]

4 hours ago, LittleCarrot said:

I wish Apple will Sue Microsoft to Oblivion.

They won't. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were friends during Jobs' life, and Apple wouldn't be alive today without Microsoft bailing them out in 1999. Also, what would they sue them for? You can't file a lawsuit for no reason, the judges would just laugh you off.

[Blake]

5 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

So just because it's common place for big companies to intimidate smaller ones it makes it ok? Yes it's common for big and/or litigious companies to abuse the flawed copyright laws to intimidate others into settlements. We even created a term for it: patent trolling.

 

It's still gaining money (but in the case of Microsoft, precedent for an inevitable legal battle) by means of intimidation: even if Microsoft cannot prove in court they're the lawful owners of patents AND that companies using GNU/Linux are in fact, infringing said patents, most companies would go bankrupt attempting to litigate said case because the legal system awards monetary investment vs having the law on your side by giving too many concessions to copyright holders.

To me it sounds like your saying that MS is racketeering, yet there has been no proof provided. By that same logic I could call you a murderer, provide no proof, or the proof is being kept from us because the victims are silent about their murder... something something same deal. According to the article the patent is around continuum (turn your phone into a computer? or something similar) and converge or whatever it's called. One was announced to the public first (ubuntu's version), but just announcing it to the public doesn't give you the rights to it all, what you'll find is that this has been in MS's R&D department for some time, and parts of the design will have been patented long ago. 

 

Due to copy-right law being the way it is (you need to protect it or you loose it type), even companies like ubuntu (whatever their parent company is called) Sue for breach of patents, this act alone does not make you a patent troll. Ubuntu and other gnu/linux companies have sued smaller companies, that doesn't make them patent trolls or guilty of racketeering. VMware violates the GPL license, but no-one cares?

 

A patent troll is a company or person that patents things that should not be able to be patented, or superficial things, or purchase patents for the express purpose of suing others not using the patented tech. 

 

[Misanthrope]

15 minutes ago, Blake said:

To me it sounds like your saying that MS is racketeering, yet there has been no proof provided.

I didn't write the article. The article mostly talks about the subtext behind some of the agreements. It's not based on nothing, it's just a very different interpretation of certain things happening. So I concede it's pure speculation and mostly meaningless, however if you pay atention I was replying not to these points, but the principles being defended as "This is a legal case" which is not and "Disagreements that don't end up in court are racketeering". Those statements are in my opinion are straw man arguments: 

 

1) Nobody claimed this was about legal cases

2) Nobody said it has to be racketeering or not racketeering in order to be an issue to conduct business by intimidation as you implied by saying "90% of those cases that settle are racketeering"

 

Quote

Due to copy-right law being the way it is (you need to protect it or you loose it type), even companies like ubuntu (whatever their parent company is called) Sue for breach of patents, this act alone does not make you a patent troll. Ubuntu and other gnu/linux companies have sued smaller companies, that doesn't make them patent trolls or guilty of racketeering. VMware violates the GPL license, but no-one cares?

 

Actually this is also not accurate: Ubuntu is a lot more likely to defend patents under GPL v2 which does not advocates for private code for monetary gain but the exact opposite: a legal duty to contribute to disclaim and keep open source software open. A legal protection that seeks to use copyright law to prevent others from copyrighting and henceforth closing open source projects by stating in the licence that is free to use for any purpose (including commercial purposes) so long as the source code is kept open.

 

Quote

A patent troll is a company or person that patents things that should not be able to be patented, or superficial things, or purchase patents for the express purpose of suing others not using the patented tech. 

 

No. It's just not at all what it is. A patent troll is a company that has no interest in using the patent themselves and only purchase companies to gain access to patents to sue others, not to actually use the technology at all. These are companies with no manufacturing facilities or partnerships, no engineering departments, nothing but lawyer firms that seek to take advantage of copyright law.

 

I really do not appreciate you trying to redefine a fairly common and widely known concept like patent troll to fit your narrative, you should stop embarrassing yourself.

[Misanthrope]

Unsurprisingly, the Tek Syndicate guys talk about this. I'll link the video and post my reactions to Wendell's comments (Because fuck Logan and Qain they're idiots to me)

 

 

 

[GoodBytes]

I don't get the title. How is Microsoft blackmailing Linux?

All they are doing is increase the patent fee from my understanding...

 

[Blake]

53 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I didn't write the article. (never said you did?) The article mostly talks about the subtext behind some of the agreements. It's not based on nothing, it's just a very different interpretation of certain things happening. So I concede it's pure speculation and mostly meaningless, however if you pay atention I was replying not to these points, but the principles being defended as "This is a legal case" which is not and "Disagreements that don't end up in court are racketeering". Those statements are in my opinion are straw man arguments: 

 

1) Nobody claimed this was about legal cases

2) Nobody said it has to be racketeering or not racketeering in order to be an issue to conduct business by intimidation as you implied by saying "90% of those cases that settle are racketeering"

Exactly it's Speculation and hearsay, That is the entire point I was arguing.

 

Also, it is a case. arguments don't magically because cases because they are now in a magical room called a court, they are cases long before then. Law 101, the first thing you are told is that the vast majority of cases never make it to court. a Legal case is " A legal case is a dispute between opposing parties resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process" Some examples of alternative legal processes include Arbitration, Conciliation, Mediation, and Negotiation.

 

1) the article implies the legal process has followed it's course (which it has to reach it's conclusion: a settlement), and therefore a Legal Case.

2) That wasn't implied, I was inferring based on your logic used. but anyway, we both no that the vast majority of cases never make it to court, and that does not mean that there is anything suspicious in these cases. Also, must be some communication issues between us as that was a rhetorical question.

 

53 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

No. It's just not at all what it is. A patent troll is a company that has no interest in using the patent themselves and only purchase companies to gain access to patents to sue others, not to actually use the technology at all. These are companies with no manufacturing facilities or partnerships, no engineering departments, nothing but lawyer firms that seek to take advantage of copyright law.

 

I really do not appreciate you trying to redefine a fairly common and widely known concept like patent troll to fit your narrative, you should stop embarrassing yourself.

Isn't that what I said?

"A patent troll is a company or person that patents things that should not be able to be patented, or superficial things, or purchase patents for the express purpose of suing others not using the patented tech." 

 

But then again, supposedly Apple isn't a patent troll according to the wiki definition, because suing over 'rounded corners' isn't a patent troll move, because they actually use them. This is another point where we are just arguing semantics but actually agree on the underlying message Discourse (makes me sound smarter if I use the word discourse).

 

(you are correct about the GPL part, i was pulling that out of my arse, but signing an agreement to effectively waive you right to patent infringement doesn't mean you get preferential treatment when another organisation is looking to have their rights enforced).

[LittleCarrot]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Also, @LittleCarrot, fix your post because it doesn't meat posting guideline.

What Do I need to Ad?